Screaming and Filters
by Jara257
Summary: G1. Filtering out Starscream's voice from your audials always seems like a good idea. Until it's not.


A/N: 20 minutes of being stuck in the car with my screaming baby cousin apparently inspires crack fic.

**Warnings:** None.

**Disclaimer****:** I do not own Transformers.

* * *

The buzz of conversation in the common area was loud already, with most of the Decepticons present absolutely drunk off their afts. They'd successfully managed to grab a huge haul off from the Autobots; it was a time to celebrate, at least for now. But through the slurred and obnoxiously loud conversations, a raucous laugh cut through the buzz. None paid it much mind considering who was laughing.

As Skywarp came down from his bout of laughter, small chuckles and snorts escaping as he did, he leaned back in his seat, wings flexing to accommodate them. "Oh, Primus, some mechs just don't know when to shut up, do they?"

Across from him, Mixmaster shook his head, lifting up his cube for a drink. "Well, you would know."

Skywarp let out a chortle before pausing. "Hey, wait a sec—"

"I meant Starscream. Not you."

"Oh. Yeah." Suddenly, the purple seeker's face pulled into a lopsided grin. "Yeah, I actually would. I swear, he gets his aft blasted enough as it is, and he just has to pile it on by talkin' more."

Mixmaster let out a small laugh, his high grade seeming to finally work through his systems. "And how can anyone stand his voice? It's so high an—and whiny. How can anyone take it seriously?"

"You know, even _Starscream_ can't stand his own voice," he remarked.

The chemist gave the seeker an incredulous look. "With how much _he_ talks?"

Skywarp gave him the most serious look he could. But it looked more like squinting in the end. Primus, his vision was getting blurry. "No, really. It's honestly so bad that—well, you know how some bots put a filter on their own voice so they can't hear themselves talk?"

"To be honest, never really understood that. I mean, who'd really wanna do that?"

Skywarp's face screwed up in a grin. "Well, if you've got a voice like Screamer's."

As their laughter cut through the buzz yet again, a pair of red optics gleamed in the corner before their owner slipped out from the common room, heading toward the officer's corridor.

* * *

"You fool!"

Megatron immediately stopped in his invigorating speech, his attention, along with everyone else's, turning to the source of the exclamation which had stepped out from the myriad of Decepticons all clustered together on the bridge of the Nemesis. The tricoloured seeker sneered at the gunformer, obviously prepared with every manner of insult and argument that he could come up with.

In the crowd, most of the Decepticons rolled their optics, or simply sighed, already tuning out and just waiting for their leader to finally blast Starscream out of the bridge. This wouldn't take too long, hopefully.

Starscream stood not a few metres from the grey mech who already had a frown marring his faceplates. "How can we be expected to follow you with such a ridiculous plan? Clearly, _I_ should have drawn up the plans before you wasted everyone's time by calling us here."

Megatron's gaze was steady as the seeker challenged him. "And what makes you think _you're_ plans would be much better, Starscream? An incompetent fool like yourself couldn't even lead a scraplet to metal."

Starscream's wings quivered in anger before he puffed up in a show of defiance. "Your plans never work, Megatron. Everyone here would agree; with my plans, I would lead the Decepticons to Candyland."

The gunformer, about to offer his retort, paused for a moment in confusion.

Seeing his leader's hesitation, Starscream smirked, turning his attention to the crowd in front of him. "You toasting? Even now, our illustrious leader hesitates to fight against pie! Megatron is an inadequate leader, and I should be leading the Uruguay!"

Slowly, some mechs finally caught on that _something_ was wrong and tapped their neighbours to make sure they were all hearing right. Soon enough, the entire room was filled with mutters and whispers, which Starscream only took as an agreement with his speech. That is, until the mumbling gave way to small clusters of snickering before the entire room simply dissolved into laughter.

"And _what exactly_ is so Smurfs?!" he screeched at the crowd. His words sent the crowd into another bout of raucous laughter. He glared down at the crowd, expectantly waiting for an answer. But instead, he heard small snippets of breathless speech through the howling.

"His _voice_—it just—"

"What the frag is a _Smurf_?"

"See? I _told _you—can't hear a damned thing!"

Finally, the trine leader began to realize that something was very wrong. Resetting his audials to their original setting, the seeker said 'Megatron'.

"Sexy."

Another wave of laughter washed over him as he uttered the word. Realizing exactly what had been going on, his faceplates heated to a bright pink and his wings began to quiver in outrage. Immediately, his optics settled onto a certain purple seeker near the back who, out of all of them, seemed to be laughing the hardest.

He stormed through the crowd, optics brightened in rage. The seeker stalked up to his trine mate, hissing. "Stapler!"

Skywarp did his best to stand up straight instead of leaning against Thundercracker for support. "I-it wasn'—hahaha, me! But, oh Primus, I _wish_ I had thought of this sooner!"

Fans kicking on, the SIC growled. "Let's see how _funny_ you think it is after I'm done with Seinfeld!"

He grabbed his trinemate by a shoulder vent, dragging a cackling Skywarp in tow. Thundercracker followed along, clearly trying to suppress his own laughter. Better make sure he didn't take their trinemate offline.

Back in the bridge, Megatron settled into his throne, a neutral expression on his faceplates. Through the roaring laughter, his gravelly voice cut through clearly, "You're all dismissed!"

The Decepticons all filed out of the room, still chortling and some still clinging onto each other. By the time the room was empty, Megatron finally allowed himself a smirk and a small chuckle.

"Well done, Soundwave," the warlord said as his TIC came up to stand at his left. Beside him, the communication officer's blue servo patted Ravage's helm, but offered no response to his leader's praise; he was too busy trying to maintain his composure.


End file.
